


The Fall of the New Republic

by ElegyGoldsmith



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Swap, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barebacking, Bathing/Washing, Braids, Bubble Bath, Caretaking, Complete, Cunnilingus, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Servitude, Dominant Rey, F/M, Fluff and Smut, HEA, Happily Ever After, Massage, Older Woman/Younger Man, Oral Sex, Political Campaigns, Protective Ben Solo, Romantic Fluff, Scents & Smells, Senator Rey, Size Kink, Soft Ben Solo, Stripping, Submissive Ben Solo, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, True Love, Woman on Top, butler ben solo, domme rey, obedient ben solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26667781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegyGoldsmith/pseuds/ElegyGoldsmith
Summary: Silence falls between them, and Ben shifts in self-conscious awareness. There’s no reason to be here anymore; he’s imposing on her by lingering. “If there isn’t anything else, Miss Niima—”“Actually, I wonder if you might…”She breaks off, and he tries to focus on her face, not the way tendrils of her silver-shot hair are escaping from her braids to coil against her neck.“Ben, would it be overstepping to ask if you might stay for a bit?” she asks softly.His head swims, and the riversong of the filling bathtub suddenly sounds like it’s worlds away, echoing through caves.Surely she doesn’t— shecan’t—How many times has he dreamed of this moment?“S-Stay, Miss?” he stammers like a godsdamned idiot, heart thudding drunkenly.“It’s just — er — I wondered if you might see if you could work these dreadful knots out of my shoulders.” She’s blushing more blindingly than he is, even as a stone falls in his gut, spreading ripples of shame.In which Butler Ben Solo confronts the possibility of a different sort of future with his boss and secret love, outgoing senator Rey Niima.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 42
Kudos: 249
Collections: House Dadam A-Z Kink Collection





	The Fall of the New Republic

**Author's Note:**

> “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”  
> —Rabindranath Tagore
> 
> 🌸
> 
> Huge thanks to my dear [Michelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mveazli) for beta-reading this story!! It's very different thank my usual, but that's the beauty of these challenges 🖤
> 
> I'm posting weekly [blog updates](https://www.elegygoldsmith.com/blog) to keep y'all posted about what's up next! Drop me any questions on [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/ElegyGoldsmith), like my works I'm an open book :)
> 
> 🌸
> 
> **Recent updates:**  
>  \+ [Daddy’s Knot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25711933) | Omega Rey needs money to make her tuition payment. One night with a faceless Alpha and his twisted tastes promises to change that.  
> 🖤 **Chapter 4 | I Can Take Anything I Want, Part I** is live as of 22 September 2020  
> 🖤 **Chapter 5 | I Can Take Anything I Want, Part II** is live as of 22 September 2020
> 
> **On deck:**  
>  \+ [Craving Kylo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14951468/chapters/34645847) | Programmer Rey Jakkusen agrees to become the BDSM submissive of tech titan Kylo Ren — but can she fulfill her contract without losing her heart?  
> 🖤 **Chapter 15 | Bark & Bight** is live as 17 August 2020  
> 🖤 **Chapter 16 | Leaves from a Lonely Vine** is coming soon!
> 
> 🌸
> 
>   
>    
> 

The mantlepieces are gleaming and the crystal lights are polished long before the cloister bell down the street tolls the hour, its song melancholy amidst the gathering dark. Ben’s waiting at the front door as the muted purr of the chauffeured car crescendos, stopping precisely on cue — and he snaps his pocket watch shut, tucking it back into his waistcoat pocket and giving the impeccably-ironed garment a final tug.

It always makes his stomach tighten with worry, these few moments when she’s between the car and the front door. He’d prefer to escort her, of course, but she’s staunchly rebuffed his offers each time, hazel eyes sparking with amusement.

_ Don’t be silly, Benjamin _ . As though he was asking if she’d like to take breakfast without her usual mug of Nakadian tea, not trying to protect her from deranged, would-be vigilantes — or worse.

Senator Rey Niima.

He swings the door open just as the petite woman summits the mountain of steps leading up to the Hosnian brownstone. She looks haggard — and perhaps that’s to be expected after such a momentous day, but his heart aches for her, knowing the invisible weight she’s carrying on those fragile shoulders. The fate of millions.

It’s a cosmic joke that this should be his birthday, too.

“Good evening, Senator,” he offers as she draws even with him.

Her face breaks in a genuine smile, warmth radiating through her exhaustion as she glances up. It’s like a shock to the heart when her gaze meets his. Like always. 

“Good evening, Benjamin.”

Then she’s safely over the threshold — and he closes the door again, sighing in silent relief as the car prowls away and each of the twelve locks click home for the night.

* * *

She takes a light supper in her study, still working even now. Technically Congress won’t recess and be dissolved until midnight, and it’s like she’s determined to use every remaining minute to its utmost, her brow drawn with diamond-sharp focus. 

Ben watches her around the line of the door, not shut but left partly ajar. Every so often she takes a sip of the vegetable soup he let simmer all afternoon, flavored with herbs fresh from the tiny garden he tends for just such purposes — and then she resettles her readers on the bridge of her pert nose, eyes never once leaving her papers.

He tries not to pace. She can always hear it, and the low call of “ _ Benjamin _ ,” invariably floats through the study door she leaves cracked, gently chiding him. He’s probably done that a hundred times just to hear her voice, to feel that golden rush flood through his chest as she utters his name.

But not tonight. Tonight he won’t distract her with his petty bids for attention.

Instead he busies himself with the household linens, losing himself in trying to anticipate what curtains she’ll want packed away for the summer season. This will be different than any other year, of course; things might have to be put into storage for longer than a few balmy months. Maybe even given away, if they’re too much trouble to bring along wherever she means to go next.

After the new elections. After the corruption is purged once and for all, every last representative of the New Republic swept away, the innocent immolating their political careers along with the guilty.

A move spearheaded by  _ her _ , of course. Fearless to the last.

The uncertainty makes his head spin and his mouth go dry. They haven’t spoken of what comes next — it’d be above his station to broach such a thing, or perhaps he simply dreads her answer — and he devotes himself to the task at hand, consulting a decades’-worth of increasingly elaborate spreadsheets to index her favorites by season and weight.

* * *

The chiming of the front door just before nine-thirty sets Ben’s hackles on edge. 

He’s already glaring before he undoes the dozen locks to find the peevish redhead hunched on the doorstep, robes of office drawn haughtily about him, bedraggled from the misty night — and the sight of the man only makes his glower deepen.

Not that Hux remembers  _ him _ , of course. The trial was more than a decade ago; he’d been just one of any number of young thugs working for the syndicate back then, the kind of street muscle that was either in the process of being chewed up and swallowed or hardened into iron, later to move up the ranks. No one of note to the higher-ups just yet — which was how he’d seen so much.

Until an ambitious young district attorney no one had ever heard of brought the whole twisted machine crashing down.

Ben’s anonymous testimony had been only a piece of her grand design — and a decade later, he still had no idea why she’d taken pity on a nineteen-year-old former enforcer-turned-state’s witness, offering him a place on her private staff. 

And he still loathed the one member of Snoke’s operation that had scurried away unscathed, later to rise to his own place in the Senate: Archibald Hux.

“Good evening,” Ben drawls, perfectly positioning his body to block the door even as Hux tries to peer past him.

“Senator Niima — I  _ must _ see her!”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

The smaller man huffs in agitation, finally meeting Ben’s gaze long enough to glare razors at him. “Senate Leader  _ Hux _ , you imbecile!”

“Of course, sir,” he replies deferentially. “I’ll enquire if she’s available for visitors.”

Hux’s mouth falls open as Ben steps back and begins to close the door again. “And you’re just going to leave me standing here on the doorstep in the meantime?”

He’s careful to keep his face frozen in a dispassionate mask. “Indeed.”

Hux’s incensed yowling rises to a feverish pitch, but by then the door’s clicked shut between them again. Part of Ben hopes the other man will try the unlocked threshold as he strides away, press his luck and give Ben a reason to deck him — but the thickset bodyguards that’ve planted themselves at the foot of the exterior steps probably would’ve welcomed the opportunity for violence, too.

He clears his throat as he approaches her ajar study door, giving her warning even before he knocks. “Archibald Hux to see you, Senator.”

“So I heard.” She’s already on her feet, a faint smile teasing her lips as she shrugs on her formal robes. “You could have seen him into the sitting room, Ben.”

“I  _ could _ have,” he agrees evenly — and his stomach swoops at the way her nose crinkles with secret mirth.

“Oh, dear,” she murmurs, and then she’s past him, headed for the sitting room to await her guest.

* * *

Hux is no less unpleasant for having been left to stew like Ben’s mistress’s dinner. He glares sourly, huffing his way past Ben despite having no idea where he’s going, and his already-blotched cheeks glow redder as he’s forced to turn back.

“ _ Senator Niima _ ,” the interloper half-snarls as Ben finally ushers him to the sitting room door.

His mistress is composed as ever, the trailing brocades of her office settled perfectly about her as she perches on an Alderaanian-style couch. She looks up from the hardbound book cradled in her fingers, blinking in a perfect simulacrum of surprise. “Senator Hux. What an unexpected pleasure.”

To anyone else, the words are an innocuous pleasantry. But after so long in her service Ben only hears the meaning hidden beneath.

_ Stay close. Not to be trusted. _

He stands at attention beside the door, pretending not to notice as Hux’s pale gaze flicks to him again. “Leave us.”

“I’ll thank you not to order my butler around, Archibald,” she says smoothly. “Unless Benjamin’s joined your employ sometime during the last few minutes.” Thank the gods she taught him to keep his composure, or he might burst into laughter at her look of perfect innocence as she peers up at him. “ _ Have _ you, Ben?”

“No, Miss,” he returns evenly.

“There, you see?” She turns back to Hux, beaming. “Now, how may I help you?”

The sickly man’s expression crumples in a sneer, and he throws himself down onto the couch facing hers, no less childlike for his advancing years.

Ben listens to the tones of the conversation more than the words. Hux has already lost, of course; he knows it if he’s desperate enough to come here, on the verge of his coalition’s defeat. His entreaties are sharp, frustrated things, but through it all she stays cordial, her low alto unperturbed — and finally, not more than a quarter-hour after his unceremonious arrival, Hux storms out, glaring back every few steps as Ben shadows him back to the door.

“May you and your bitch mistress rot in hell!” Hux seethes as he stumbles back out into the drizzling night.

Ben nearly  _ does _ punch him then — but for the woman sitting in the other room, relying on him. Trusting him to keep his cool.

“Goodnight, Mr. Hux,” he replies, perversely gratified to wring a final poisonous glare out of the ginger man before shutting him out once and for all.

She’s back in her study by the time Ben returns, rocking her head from side to side, mindlessly stretching her neck as she stares down at the scattered sheaves of paper. “Shall I draw you a bath, Senator?”

“Senator…” She laughs wistfully, and lets her reading specs fall on her desk atop the confusion. “Only for another few hours. Let’s not stand on ceremony.”

His heart catches — and for some stupid reason, maybe because it’s his birthday, because the future’s looming like midnight itself, he lets his thoughts blunder to his lips: “It’s a brave thing you’ve done, Miss.”

She frowns. “Hmm?”

“The coalition. Your victory.”

“Ah.” Her expression clears. “Term limits for all congressional representatives, a full purge of both sitting houses… Our friend Mr. Hux isn’t quite so pleased about that.”

“Mr. Hux can go sit on an iron-spiked dildo,” he growls, the crassness of his own outburst catching up with him too late as her eyes widen.

“That’s … er, evocative, Ben. And perhaps understandable, given the circumstances.” Stolen warmth flickers through his nerves as her gaze probes him, stirring him in places that it’s taboo to even think of. “Are you alright?”

He scowls at her, startled. “ _ Me _ , Miss?” 

“Of course, Ben.” Her eyes are meadow-soft. “Every time I see him, it’s a reminder of how he slipped loose. I can’t imagine how difficult it must’ve been for you.”

He swallows hard, trying to rid his throat of the sudden thickness. “I’m fine, Miss.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” she echoes, but she doesn’t seem entirely convinced as she lifts her hand to her neck, mindlessly kneading the overtaxed muscles.

The gesture is torture — and Ben grits his jaw, forcing back an avalanche of unwelcome thoughts, things he’s locked away over the years in her service, one tiny moment at a time. 

A glance. A touch. A scent.

“Miss … the bath?”

“Thank you, I think that might be actually perfect,” she admits.

“Straightaway, Senator.”

She smiles sadly, but doesn’t correct him again — and he follows her up the twisting stairs like a shadow.

* * *

The door to the adjoining bathroom is already open a few paces down the hall, and Ben slips his jacket from his shoulders and sets it aside, puttering among her scant supplies to find what he needs. Between her Senate work, charity fundraisers, and other obligations, the one person she consistently forgets to look after is herself — but in the end he’s able to draw up a symphony of scented vapors as the tub fills with bubble-crested water.

“Mm.” He stumbles backward, startled as she appears, gliding through the door to her bedchamber with hardly a sound. Her robes are gone, replaced by a simple robe of peach silk — and he instinctively averts his eyes, reaching for her jacket. 

She waves a tired hand in his peripheral vision. “Leave it. I’ve had my fill of formality for the night.”

“But Senator—”

“ _ Benjamin _ .” Reluctantly, he meets her gaze — and his chest thumps as he finds her watching him with that perfect if exhausted smile. “Please. Leave it.” She peers into the tub. “And  _ do _ tell me what absolute wizardry you’ve wrought in here, it smells heavenly.”

Suddenly his cheeks are as scorching as the water. “Fizzing plum and cherry blossom, Miss Niima.”

“Ah.” She glances up at him again, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “Some ancient Chandrilan remedy, no doubt.”

“Just my best guess as to what you’d like,” he answers gruffly.

“Perhaps you missed your calling as an herbalist.”

Silence falls between them, and Ben shifts in self-conscious awareness. There’s no reason to be here anymore; he’s imposing on her by lingering. “If there isn’t anything else, Miss—”

“Actually, I wonder if you might…”

She breaks off, and he tries to focus on her face, not the way tendrils of her silver-shot hair are escaping from her braids to coil against her neck.

“Ben, would it be overstepping to ask if you might stay for a bit?” she asks softly.

His head swims, and the riversong of the filling bathtub suddenly sounds like it’s worlds away, echoing through caves.

Surely she doesn’t— she  _ can’t _ —

How many times has he dreamed of this moment?

“S-Stay, Miss?” he stammers like a godsdamned idiot, heart thudding drunkenly.

“It’s just — er — I wondered if you might see if you could work these dreadful knots out of my shoulders.” She’s blushing more blindingly than  _ he _ is, even as a stone falls in his gut, spreading ripples of shame.

Of course she’s not asking him to stay like  _ that _ . Gods, in the decade he’s been in her service she’s never brought  _ anyone _ to her bedchamber.

“Not that you’re under any obligation to do so, of course,” she adds quickly, as though desperate to preserve him from the one thing he wants most. “But those bubbles do seem rather … er, modest, I suppose?” She twitches her head, and her hand rises to the column of her neck again. “Oh gods, listen to me nattering on, what a ridiculous thing to ask—”

“It’s not.” Does he sound too eager? He must, from the way her lips part as she looks up at him. “I… That is, I don’t mind, Miss.”

“Oh.” She laughs softly. “Well, then.”

He shuffles around in a semicircle, and his hands clench into fists at the sound of splashing behind him. In a decade he’s never once seen her indecent — but the way she groans as she sinks into the water he prepared to soothe her body is enough to make heat gather in his cock.

_ Fuck _ .

Mercifully there’s already a chair in the room just ahead of where he’s standing, and he doesn’t have to try to sidle out of the room to fetch one while hiding his burgeoning erection. His mistress is equally chaste, everything below her shoulders swathed in opaque pink bubbles as he settled himself behind where she’s sitting in the freestanding tub.

“After seeing your wonderful work with Mustafarran sourdough I thought my shoulders might not prove a terrible challenge,” she sighs, twisting off the running tap. “Is that silly of me?”

He huffs with quiet laughter as the droplets plink to a stop. “No, Miss. It’s a notorious challenge, even among seasoned bakers.”

“After all this time, Benjamin, I think you can call me Rey.”

He can’t. Not remotely. Not when her shoulders are there before him, bare and sculpted like a statue of one of the warrior queens of old.

“Are you alright?” she murmurs quietly.

Again, always looking after the people around her. Looking after  _ him _ .

“Just rolling up my sleeves, Miss,” he says, quickly unbuttoning the cuffs and pushing the fabric up to his elbows so it’s not a lie.

Then… 

Her skin is warm, welcoming — and it’s as though a current passes between them when his fingers mold to the planes of her skin. His thumbs draw light ribbons on each side of her spine, finding the hollows between her shoulder blades where she’s taut as a bowstring.

“Oh,” she murmurs. “Yes, that’s lovely, Benjamin, thank you.”

“You’re so tight,” His stomach lurches sickeningly as he realizes: “I-I mean—”

Whether from exhaustion or politeness, she doesn’t notice. “No, you’re right, I am. I feel like everything in my neck’s frozen solid.” She snorts quietly. “I suppose that’s what I get for trying to reason with the  _ outgoing _ senate leader, may he rant in peace.”

“No wonder you were on the verge of a headache.”

“How did you—?” She’s starting to turn to look at him when she breaks off, wincing. “Damn!”

“Miss Niima,  _ please _ .”

“Just Rey, Benjamin,” she reminds him dully, but lets him gently pull her back against the tub.

God, her skin is so soft, it’s like he’s caressing virgin moss— and moment by moment she’s relaxing into his touch, melting back against the porcelain curve separating their bodies. It’s a beautiful agony to know he’s so close to her unclothed form,  _ touching _ her, even as she’s oblivious to her effect on him.

“It’s the little things,” he admits at last.

“Hmm?”

“How I knew you were getting a headache.” A coil of hair clings to her neck in the shimmering heat, and he pauses long enough to twist it up out of the way, careful not to pinch her before smoothing her skin again. “You do this thing where you tilt your head … it’s sort of hard to describe.”

“You take such good care of me, Benjamin,” she murmurs — and a giggle pops past her lips like a hiccup, prompting more splashes from beneath the carpet of bubbles. “Oh dear, I’m slurring, d’you hear that?  _ Bennn-zhaaa-min _ . I sound like I’m drunk.”

“You  _ should _ be out celebrating with your colleagues, Miss. Not sitting here with me.”

“I think I’m rather more comfortable at home as I stumble into middle age. And I’m very fond of you, Ben.” Water sloshes as she jerks bolt upright, clutching the sides of the tub in alarm. “Your birthday! Oh gods, speaking of people who should be out celebrating—”

“I’m more comfortable at home, too, Miss Niima.” That, and he’s stuck sitting beside the lip of the tub to hide a hard-on that gets nothing but bigger as his gaze drifts across her naked back, wondering how long it’s been since anyone’s touched her like this.

“ _ Ben _ ,” she scoffs — and damn his own hands, she’s able to turn around enough to glare at him in baleful mirth. “You’re turning  _ thirty _ , not sixty.”

“And  _ you _ , Miss Niima, aren’t yet forty. Hardly much older.”

Her lips quirk in a true smile. “You flatter me, Benjamin.”

Delight glows in his chest like stoked embers as she sits back again, but then he can’t help scowling as her inkstained fingers move to the intricate lines of her braids. “Miss Niima — allow me.”

“Oh.” Her elegant hands freeze on her hair. “I suppose … that is, if it isn’t another foolish imposition...”

“Nothing of the kind,” he says firmly, the tension in his frame easing as her hands sink back into the nebula of rosy bubbles.

It takes Ben a long time to unfasten each coil from around her head and unplait the cornsilk-smooth locks, but by the time he’s done, her wavy chestnut glory trails almost to the floor. He combs his fingers through the cascade, utterly entranced as soft, wordless murmurs find their way past her lips.

He’s doing this.  _ He’s _ making her feel this good. This relaxed.

“You’ve always been so good to me, Benjamin,” she sighs. “You’ve made my house a home.”

A frisson of secret delight runs down Ben’s spine. “Miss Niima—”

“No, I mean it.” She tilts her head around, searching for him, struggling against her body’s heavy languor. “All this time I’ve been trying to look after so many people at once, trying to look after you, even — but you’ve been looking after me.”

“I  _ like _ looking after you, Miss,” he mumbles, hardly daring to speak the words.

She peers at him for a few long moments. “Do you, now.”

The breath catches in his throat.

Silence falls between them like snowfall.

“Please get me a towel, Benjamin,” she says at length, her low alto hardly audible even amid the tiled room. “I think I’m ready for bed.”

His chest collapses — and godsdammit, he’s still harder than durasteel. If he moves quickly, he can grab one of the plush cloths and hold it before him at the right angle — or maybe his coat looped over his arm—

His hand’s just closed about one of the folded towels when water rushes behind him, loud enough to be startling. Stiff cock or not, turning is instinctive — but nothing,  _ nothing _ can prepare him for the sight of her rising from the bubble-bedecked water, amber gaze sharp and clear once more.

He can feel himself gaping, but her body is singularly perfect, from the swells of her rose-tipped breasts to the generous flair of her hips and the waterfall of her loosed hair clinging to her drenched, naked form.

And the close-cropped triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs …  _ fuck _ —

“Please help me out of the tub, Benjamin.”

Her voice is warm but stern, and he feels like he’s out of his own body, floating as he moves to the side of the tub and extends one hand.

Ben gasps as she slips her fingers into his, but he’s careful not to support her as she leans on him, stepping out of the draining water and onto the waiting bath mat. In the space of mere moments she’s become so much shorter but no less imposing, her gaze burning into him.

“Dry me off, please, Benjamin.”

“Y-You want me to—”

“Yes.” Her lips tightens in a coy smirk. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

There’s no way she hasn’t noticed her effect on his body — not now that she’s standing before him, naked and perfect as a goddess wrought of seafoam. Her eyes drop to where Ben’s distending his trousers with need, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been so hard in his life as with her staring at him, softly biting her lower lip.

“Miss Niima,” he manages. “I-I—”

Her cheeks glow pinker than the bubbles still trailed across her skin. “Oh Ben, I fear I’ve misjudged things. I _ do _ apologize—”

She reaches out for the towel he’s holding — but he twitches away.

“Or perhaps not,” his mistress murmurs at the gesture, and Ben’s rewarded with another lip-bite that makes his drumming heartbeat stumble.

Her thighs. The soft valley of skin beneath her hips. The scar on her shoulder from where she nearly took a bullet the night of his extraction, the night she saved him from the First Order.

She shivers — and that’s what finally prompts him into moving.

Ben shakes out the towel, nearly dropping it twice because his hands are quaking like aspen leaves. He doubles it up carefully, only reaching out to brush the first droplets from her cheeks once he’s sure that his skin won’t sully hers.

He grazes the thirsty fabric along the sweep of her neck, his strokes growing longer and bolder as she shivers again. It feels like a transgression to stare at her skin, but that’s easier than meeting her eyes as he makes his way lower, soaking up the beads that crest her collarbone.

He can distract himself for a few long moments moving to her side, drying her hair and skating down from her shoulders to the small of her back — but then she turns, facing him squarely.

“I want you to dry  _ all  _ of me,” she hums. 

Her fingers encircle his wrist, drawing his hand to her breasts, but still he only touches the fabric to her skin, traversing the rich swells as she watches him.

She’s so short compared to Ben that he has to sink to one knee to take his time with the peachy hemispheres of her ass — yet strangely, even wordless he can anticipate her movements, knowing even before she lifts her knee that she’s going to settle her bare foot against the diagonal plane of his folded leg. Just like when he helps her into her winter boots … only now there isn’t any Senate finery between them to obscure her lovely form.

Her soft, shallow breaths echo above him as he finds his way up from her ankle, pressing the fabric against her shin, her calf, the back of her knee. She murmurs louder as he finds his way up her thigh, repeating the gestures up the length of her other leg.

“Be thorough, Benjamin,” Miss Niima says softly, and the way an  _ nnh _ whispers through the bathroom as he rubs the folded fabric between her legs make him flare with hope.

Then it’s done — and he stands, uncertain what to do with the towel or his hands or his gawky body that’s always loomed over hers.

“My robe, please.”

It’s hanging on a hook on the back of the door to the corridor. Only as he turns away does the full hunger of his erection hit him, the throbbing heat refusing to be denied as he trades her towel for her robe.

The petite woman is calm as ever as he retraces his steps around the tub — and he holds the garment out, slipping it up to settle over her shoulders as she draws her arms through the sleeves. She knots the sash at the waist, but only loosely; the curves of her breasts are framed by the deep V of fabric, and Ben’s hands are abruptly, unbearably empty as he sees the peaks of her stiffened nipples pressing through the fine silk.

“Slippers.” Her mouth twists as she looks down at her feet. “The one thing I  _ always _ forget.”

Ben doesn’t need to be told twice.

He scoops her up in his arms, hitching her against his chest even though it means she can feel his quickening heart.

_ This _ is what it would be like. Belonging to her the way he wishes he could.

“Thank you, Benjamin,” she murmurs, her breath warming his neck as she settles her arm around his shoulders.

If only her bedroom was further away — but a few powerful strides through the connecting door and he’s beside her canopied bed, laying her gently if reluctantly on her weighted quilt.

His mistress’s fingers close around Ben’s wrist again as he straightens. “Sit.” 

Her gaze is there to welcome him, drawing him in as he settles himself on the edge of the mattress. She nods at her night table, where a tiny tincture bottle stoppered with an eyedropper stands waiting.

_ Fuck _ , to touch her —  _ properly _ this time, and not only her shoulders—

“Please warm it up on your hands first,” she instructs as he measures a few drops of scented liquid out into his cupped palm before replacing the tincture bottle on the table.

The intermingled aromas of sweetgrass and lemon coil into his nose as he rubs the oil between his palms — and he stiffens as she settles one of her feet in his lap.

“Does this help?” She sounds so innocent again, but the way she rubs against his inflamed length seems anything but accidental. 

The surge of pleasure that shudders through him at her touch is what makes him clutch her calf, as though she can save him — and his fingers trace fluid designs along her skin as he works the oil into her.

“Ah,” she hums, her eyes heavy-lidded with bliss.

“Miss Niima—”

“Yes, Benjamin?” Her voice is more breathless now — but her foot slides against him just  _ there _ again, and a groan slides through his gritted teeth.

He gently pulls her foot away, massaging her sole, the line of her arch, working his way back to her heel. “Please, Miss — let me take my time. I want to enjoy this.”

“Enjoy what?”

He pauses, drawing circles on her supple flesh with his thumb as he finds another spot that makes her lovely eyes flare. “Tending to you.”

She settles back at that, resting against her pillows as he caresses her from her toes to her knees, murmuring softly as he teases the aches from her legs, hissing as he finds more sensitive spots.

“You wouldn’t hurt like this if you didn’t try to walk everywhere, Miss Niima,” he mutters as he moves higher, daring to part her robe higher to reveal more of her thighs.

She laughs at that — a sound that’s soft and full-throated all at once. A sound that’s only for him, and stokes the delight rippling through his chest. 

“Benjamin, how long’s it been since you were with a woman?”

His fingers stop, and the heat glowing from her skin threatens to burn him.

He can’t lie to her. He  _ won’t. _ But if he tells the truth… 

“Miss Niima.” His voice is hoarse with the force of everything he’s been holding back — and he lets his hand stray to the back of her thigh, urging her back down. “Please, I have to tell you— Th-That is, you should know…”

“That you look at me with longing? Yes, Benjamin. I know.”

His heart thuds with nauseating force as they regard each other, a strange tableau of nervous desire.

There it is: his crime laid bare in her bell-clear voice, her gaze steady as she watches him.

“But I don’t ever want that to hold you back from pleasure,” she adds softly. “If you should wish to take a lover, or find a quiet life for yourself—”

“My position in your house is enough for me, Miss,” he importunes her. He tries to draw her legs back into his lap, but she resists him. “Please, if you’d only allow me—”

“Not attired as you are, I think. Please stand up.”

Ben doesn’t want to let her go, but he does as she’s bid. She perches in the place he’s just abandoned, her eyes traveling the length of his body, lingering again in the place that makes him flush with shame.

“Your waistcoat and your shirt — and your tie, of course.” She lifts her chin, regarding him flintily, a barely-clad empress. “Remove them for me.”

The brocaded vest is easy enough to shed, but his fingers stumble on the buttons of his shirt. He’s so distracted by her near-nakedness and the scent of her body that he forgets to loosen his tie, nearly choking himself as he tries to strip out of the layer.

“Oh dear,” she giggles primly. “Please be careful, Mr. Solo. And  _ do _ remove your undershirt as well.”

He finds his way out of the stifling clothes — and then his chest is bare, his body on display for her ravenous gaze.

“ _ Benjamin _ ,” she sighs, and his cock twitches feverishly as she moves one hand to the crux of her thighs, drawing her fingers against herself in shallow strokes.

“Miss, please…” He hates the note of pleading in his voice, but it’s not right. “Please, let me do that for you.”

“This?” She glances down at her fingers, then back at him. “You want to touch me here, Ben?”

The words rumble out of him in an earthquake of longing: “ _ Yes _ , Miss Niima.”

To his immense relief she pulls her fingers away from herself, leaning back on her fists, letting her knees twitch a few inches apart. Teasing him. 

“Then don’t keep me waiting.”

He moves to her like a sleepwalker and sinks to his knees, looping her bent legs over his shoulders with a suddenness that makes her squeal. The sound makes him press his hips into the side of the mattress, the animal within him desperate to take her.

But she’s taught him how to master himself. How to care for more than his own hide.

How to love.

Her thighs warm his face, firm about him and beneath his clenched fingers — and her sex is there before him, petalline and perfect as the rest of her body.

_ Her _ pussy. Miss Niima’s. The most sacred, secret part of her.

He inhales deeply as he nuzzles between her folds, savoring her aroma. He’s only caught traces of this elusive scent before, but now he’s on his knees before her source, her center — and he’s intoxicated by the full force of  _ her _ .

She’s sweet as crystallized berries as he presses the first soft kiss into her crevice.

“Oh  _ Ben _ ,” his mistress sighs.

Emboldened by her voice, he laps into her, parting her deeper, tracing the outline of her pussy and flattening his tongue against the sensitive nub that makes her cry out. He’s been craving her for so long that he lets himself linger against her hollow, dipping into her like he’s fucking her with his tongue before licking a bold ribbon along her crease.

Senator Niima. Rey. She actually  _ wants _ him, she’s bared to him, her hips rocking against his face as he pulls her against him even more firmly.

_ “Fuck _ .” Her melodic voice is strained, and he groans into her crux, openmouthed with desire.

His cock begs for relief, but his own base needs are nothing compared to this. He can jerk it anytime he wants — and he certainly has enough times before, imagining just this sort of thing with her — but it’s no match for burying his face in her cunt, feeling her ride his face as he alternately sucks her clit in soft, wet pulses and delves into her forcefully.

“Ben.”

He knows the soft urgency in her voice, but he doesn’t want to stop. Not yet.

“ _ Benjamin _ .”

Her hands knot in his hair, leading him back, but he grazes the inside of her thighs with his lips, leaving lingering kisses on her before she steals herself away again.

Miss Niima stares down at him, and her beautiful eyes are glazed, but her voice is as cool as snowmelt as she cups his sticky chin. “You will remove your clothes, and stand before me naked.”

“Miss Niima—” he implores, but she only narrows her gaze.

“ _ You will remove your clothes _ ,” she repeats, enunciating every syllable, “and stand before me naked.”

How long’s it been since anyone saw him like  _ that? _ Not for years, certainly … and he rises unsteadily as he tries to remember how to unfasten his pants.

No — shoes first. 

He kneels again. God, his thoughts are so spun with need for her that he can hardly remember how to untie his laces.

She’s quiet as he undresses, humming appreciatively now and again as he strips out of the layers. Shoes, pants, socks, then finally — hesitantly — he hooks his thumbs into the top of his black boxer briefs.

The woman sitting before him inhales sharply as he negotiates the waistband down around his nightmarishly huge erection. 

“My  _ god _ , Benjamin!” Her lips quirk as she meets his gaze for a moment before returning to his twitching length again. “I mean, I had my suspicions — you  _ are _ a big boy, after all…”

She parts her knees again, sitting bolt upright on the edge of the bed as she teases her lower lip between her pearlescent teeth.

“Stand here, Ben. Right in front of me.”

He’s dismayed to still be standing upright, so far from the mouthwatering fountainhead of her pussy, but obeys. Until she leans forward, catching his prick in her clever fingers, and he realizes what she means to do. 

“Miss Niima— You can’t—  _ Rey! _ ”

She stops at Ben’s cry — but to his astonishment she glowers up at him, her gaze diamond-hard. “ _ Mr. Solo _ . You  _ will _ restrain yourself from such outbursts in future, is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes, Miss,” he mumbles, abashed to realize that he’s raised his voice to her. “But—”

“You said that you wished to tend to me.” 

His cock thrills traitorously in her hands, as satisfied to be cradled in her hands as Ben is mortified. Her tiny pink tongue moistens her lower lip, and the way her breath heats his sensitive skin makes him grind his jaw until tendons pop. 

“What I desire most at this moment is a thick cock between my lips.” Her honey gaze drops to  _ there _ again, pointedly indicating his sex before she murmurs, “And Benjamin, you seem to possess exactly what I require to assure my perfect satisfaction.”

Not once has he imagined  _ this _ sort of fire burned within Miss Niima — and now that he’s seen the truth beneath her skin, she’s bewitched him doubly.

She strokes him, her fingertips finding altogether new ways to torture him, but worst of all is the way he’s greedy for her despite himself. “Will you satisfy me or not?”

“As you please, Miss,” Ben breathes shakily, surrendering.

“Very good.” She nods, and her frosty veneer only makes him covet her more. “Now, stand before me and let me suck you — because that is  _ my  _ desire, not yours.”

_ Fuck _ .

She catches his wrists, drawing his hands away from his swaying member as he unconsciously tries to cover himself.

“You may stroke my hair if you wish to do something with your hands,” she allows quietly as she gazes up at him, “but you will not yank me about, nor will you come in my mouth. If you abuse that privilege so much as a single time it shall be revoked. Is that understood?”

Ben nods — and his knees quake as his mistress’s fingers tighten about his thick phallus, bringing him to her lips.

“ _ Fuck _ , Miss Niima,” he grits out as she kisses his cockhead and starts to lick him, spreading warmth and wetness wherever she touches.

He cards his fingers through her silk-smooth tresses as she explores him, leaving no inch of his roused sex untended. A groan twists out of his throat as she begins to suck him in earnest, tugging at him in a way that’s eager and gentle and hungry and perfect.

But to make  _ her _ feel this rapture… 

She pauses long enough to kiss him again, cupping his balls and crooning in delight as they tighten in her palm. “What are you thinking about right now, Ben?”

“H-How to get you off, Miss.”

“You’re not thinking about yourself?”

His brows knit painfully as he frowns down at her, outrage summoning a semblance of sense. “Of course not, Miss Niima!”

“I’m only teasing, my dear Ben,” she hums. “You wouldn’t lie to me. You’re far too good for that.”

Her gentle words bring an ecstasy that’s only heightened by the way she licks a spiraling ribbon about his head, flicking her tongue over the very end of him before speaking again. 

“Would you like to know how to get me off?”

“Yes,” he gasps, his fingers tightening in the cascade of her hair as she takes him deep into her throat only to ebb completely, releasing him like a soaking wave.

Ben stumbles back as she stands, joining him.

“Take off my robe.”

The peignoir clings to his sticky cock as he tugs the sash open — and as the pale fabric pools about her feet suddenly she’s naked, too. Yet even without clothes, even though he’s big enough to dwarf her, his mistress’s control over him is palpable. 

She prowls about him in a slow circle, and his stomach lurches at every soft sound from her throat as she appraises him.

“I’m feeling rather chilly, Ben.” Her heart-shaped ass begs to be caressed and kissed and worshiped as she finishes her circuit and crawls up onto the bed. She turns back to him as she reclines against the pillows, patting the quilt. “Please bring your beautiful body over here to warm me at once.”

“Anything for you, Miss Niima,” he mumbles as he joins her. “I mean it.”

Her musical laugh warms him as he settles himself — and then her body’s aligned alongside his, her curves warming that side of him like sunshine. “My dear Ben…”

She snuggles closer, nestling into the crook between his arm and his body, and then her lips are pressed to his so softly that he could be kissing a nymph. Her hand cups his jaw as she welcomes her to him again, and he drinks deeply, tasting himself on her tongue and shivering with pleasure.

“Do you want to give me an orgasm, Benjamin?” she whispers into him.

“More than anything, Miss Niima,” he rasps hungrily. “Please let me kiss you again…” 

His mistress slips onto him, kneeling over his thighs, and he gasps from the strange perfection of his cock pressing into the heated valley of her belly. “I want to feel you inside me, but I don’t wish for you to touch me. Not right now.”

He frowns at her. “Miss, how…?”

“Lace your fingers together and put them behind your head.”

Ben obeys — and though it’s a simple thing, he suddenly feels more vulnerable, more aware of how she’s pinning his hips down with her own.

The petite woman cups his face in both hands, plying him with kisses and the pressure of her body against his until he’s breathless with need. 

“I’m going to fuck you at my pleasure, and I expect you not to disobey — because you  _ are _ so very good, Ben,” she whispers, her body folded onto his like mercurial origami. “Because I trust you so utterly.”

He’s being drawn out of himself by an orchestra of sensations — the heat of her breasts as she leans into his chest like a siren, the afterglow of the bath and oils on her skin, the secret place between her legs that’s raw fire and water and yearning torqued into one.

“Miss,  _ please _ — I don’t have any condoms,” he stammers, and to his horror, she freezes against him.

“Oh dear.” She twists a lock of his hair about her forefinger, thinking. “You, er, prefer that sort of thing?”

He blushes beneath her expectant gaze, so close to him now that their breaths flow together.

Of course in his wildest dreams he fucks her raw, but… “Not  _ me _ , Miss Niima — I just meant for  _ you _ .”

“ _ Me _ , Ben?” His stubbled jaw prickles with pleasure as she traces a line of kisses to his earlobe — and he arches his back, groaning as she teases him with her lips, as though to remind him of how she’d sucked his cock. “You’re usually so good at knowing my thoughts before  _ I _ do.”

“But—”

She drives one of her own hands between her legs, and it comes away soaking with her nectar. He wants to lick her palm, suck the exotic sap from her fingertips like rock candy. “Don’t you want to feel  _ this _ around you, Ben?”

The aroma alone had been enough to make him stiffen, but he bucks under her splayed body as she rubs it along his swollen prick, coating him in it. “Of course I do — b-but—”

“But  _ what? _ ”

“But the  _ mess _ , Miss Niima!” Ben howls in despair.

“ _ Damn _ the mess, Benjamin!” His mistress rocks against him, nuzzling into his neck with growing ardour. Her hands skim over his chest, his arms, his abs, betraying her need. “ _ Make _ a mess, I don’t bloody care! —in fact, I  _ want _ your mess inside me—”

Ben can only sit there panting, hands locked together behind his head as she rears her hips away and his terminus slips against her clit. They shiver together as she fumbles, but then she finds him.

“I want  _ you _ inside me, Solo — I want your cock—” Miss Niima groans as she sinks onto him, jutting her hips forward to urge his cockhead past her threshold.

“Please… Please let me hold you,” he whispers desperately as her ravaging heat enfolds him.

“No, love.” Her lips brush against his for a fleeting moment, but Ben can hardly feel her tenderness through the exquisite sensation of her transfixing herself on him. “But I’ll hold _you_.”

She clutches his wrists as she drives her hips lower, relentlessly fucking herself onto him. And he can’t stop her.

“Miss Niima, I don’t want to hurt you,” he pleads. Her thighs are trembling on either side of his as she forces her cunt down onto his seething cock, and her breaths are tightening to whines with each new movement. “I’m too big for you, you can’t do this to yourself—”

One of her hands catches his throat.

“I will do as I please,” she rasps, wild-eyed as she stares into Ben’s very soul. Her fingers flutter against his skin with a curious authority — and though he’s already hard, so very hard, still there’s more of his cock left for her to claim.

“Am I hurting you?” He’d do anything for her, but the way her neat features are contorted makes his chest tighten. “Miss Niima, please tell me the truth!”

The ghost of a smile curves her lips. “You’re hurting me _ deliciously _ , Benjamin.” She kisses his cheek. “Dear boy…”

Her soft walls stretch for blissful eternity, and even when he fills her pussy to the brim, she rocks her hips another few times until her ass settles on his thighs.

His mistress — his love — Miss Niima groans as she conquers him utterly.

“Shall I stay like this a while?” She sinks against his chest, her gentle weight keeping his rigid cock nestled deep in her belly. “If I’d known how wonderful you feel, I don’t think I could’ve restrained myself as long as I have.”

Ben’s knuckles are bloodless from clenching tight behind his skull. It’s such agony to be used this way, without even getting to cradle her against him — and it’s only more unbearable as she starts to move, rocking herself up and down his shaft in eager little waves.

“Mr. Solo…” she moans quietly as she rides him. “Mr. Solo…  _ Ben… _ ”

Thoughts find him in brief zaps of clarity through the rapture.

She’s fucking him raw. Taking him completely.

He’s so deep in her. Lost. Loving it.

Loving  _ her _ .

“Fuck me like you mean it, Benjamin,” she demands throatily.

Ben’s knees twitch as he lifts her, bouncing her harder. Higher. Snapping his hips to thrust into her as she falls.

She cries out.  _ His _ Miss Niima.

“So good, Ben,” she mumbles into his neck. “You feel so  _ very _ good…”

Her fingers tighten on him as she quickens, finding her edge — and she shoves her hips down onto him hard, her cunt shuddering violently around his as she comes apart.

He grits his jaw again as she keeps moving around, slower now but with the same deliberation. Every tectonic clench of her pussy makes him aware of how hard he still is, twitching against her cervix at the thought of spending in her.

“That was lovely, Benjamin.” Her lips linger against his hungry ones. “Now, since you’ve warmed me up so thoroughly, I’d imagine you’ve worked up a nice messy load for me?”

“Yes, Miss Niima,” he groans. Even moving softly, she’s breaking herself open on him like he’s a stone spire and she the untamed sea. “Where should I come?”

“Right here inside me, sweetheart.” She taps his hip as she finally stops her treading movements. “Lie down first.”

“May I use my hands to move?” he asks — and he finds himself blushing with more than exertion as she cups his cheek.

“Yes. And how very thoughtful of you for asking first.”

She makes no move to dismount him, so he moves cautiously, lifting her hips with his as she tenses about his unsated prick. Her yelp as he resettles himself on the bed makes him throb with unslaked need. “ _ Gods _ , you’re so thick, love…”

He admires her from his vantage lying back beneath her. She’s radiant, her tumbling tresses the only raiment she needs as she resettles herself on him.

All these years of waiting, it’s been worth it to be with her like  _ this _ .

“Take my hips and fuck me hard, Benjamin,” his queen murmurs, her eyes darker than the space between stars.

Her skin warms his palms before he knows he’s moved, and he holds her body steady as he bends his knees, planting his feet on the bed.

Ben’s first thrust as he fucks up into her makes her cry out, her whole body clenching as he buries himself in her utterly. She arches her back and shoves his shoulders down, bracing herself against his next violent intrusion — but her eyes rage at him. “ _ Harder _ , Ben.”

“Harder?” The breath snarls in his throat, and his fingers tighten on her thighs. “Miss Niima, you’re insatiable!”

“I mean to give you an  _ unforgettably _ hard come, darling,” she gasps. “Now force me down onto you, I want to feel what those strong hands can do.”

Her beautiful cunt takes him fully as he sheathes herself in her to the hilt. He can hear as well as feel how wet she is for him, and the thought of his precum trickling into her womb as the dam inside him gives way nearly makes him come undone then and there.

But he won’t. Not yet. Not until he’s wrung at least one more orgasm from her tight body.

“That’s right,” she coos, the words broken by his own sharp rhythm. “ _ Fuck _ , Ben, wreck me with that perfect cock—”

He slips his hands down her thighs, slowing his tempo as he urges her bent knees down. “Lie on me.”

Her doe-brown eyes widen. “Benjamin—”

“Please.” He entreats her with his body as well as his voice, grinding into her until her eyelashes grow heavy with pleasure. Ten years he’s waited to feel her on him, around him, crying out his name. “Miss Niima, i-if this is to be the only time we— I—”

“The  _ only _ time?” 

She stops surging on him, and Ben wants to hold her tighter but he’s afraid she’ll slip through his fingers. 

“Are you thinking of leaving me, Ben?”

The quiet grief in her voice is enough to make him lever himself upright — and to his relief she doesn’t seem to care that he’s starting to soften inside her at her words. She simply flings an arm about his shoulders, clinging to him as he stammers, “Miss Niima, I would  _ never _ — only…”

“Only  _ what? _ ” she prompts, pulling back to gaze at him as he falters.

His heart feels like it’s been pounding for hours. Since she asked him to stay, certainly — but now it’s beating differently, aching with crystalline sorrow.

Fuck, this is so  _ wrong _ , to be still  _ inside _ her, cradling her as he tries to find the words…

But what words could possibly capture how stricken he’d be to lose her? The beautiful, clever, brave woman who pulled him out of the darkness that had almost claimed him… 

Ben swallows hard, his throat desert-dry. “Only … I thought you might not need me, now that you’re no longer going to be a senator.”

“ _ Need _ you?” She scowls at him, perplexed as she looked during those months she was learning Ryl. “Benjamin … I shall  _ always  _ need you. And more than that, I shall always  _ want _ you.”

He hears himself gasping, but it doesn’t matter. Relief rushes through his veins, melting the fear that’s been claiming him since she first drafted the plan that would annihilate the sitting Congress and her own career along with it. “Th-Then this isn’t goodbye?”

“Ben…” She prints a tender kiss on his cheek. “My dear Benjamin Solo…”

Hearing him say her name like that is all the strength he needs.

“Rey…” Her perfect lips part at her sharp inhalation — and he caresses her hair as he twitches inside her, hardening again. “Hold me.”

She flings her arms about his neck, holding him tight.

It’s so perfect that at first he only cradles her against him like that, savoring the way her sighs become strained as he thickens again. He’s practically fucking her without even moving, hardening in her belly until she’s whimpering ardently, straddled across his lap and crooning with every harsh twitch.

“Feel this?” Ben kisses her temple, drawing a groan from her as he flexes ever-so-slightly and she shudders in response. “This is how much I want you.”

His beloved Miss Niima —  _ Rey _ — nudges into his neck. “Darling, lie back. Have me as you like.”

It’s a charge Ben’s only too happy to follow.

He settles back against pillows he’s secretly sniffed a thousand times for a hint of her scent, savoring everything about her as she clings to him. The way her curvaceous body aligns with his planar one, her heat, her eagerness for him as she settles her legs outside his — not bent double to hold herself up, but relaxed, giving him her weight. 

Trusting him.

Ben caresses her from the crown of her sterling-brushed hair to the small of her back, soothing her until she melts into him — and only then does he start to move in her like a raw piston. 

He traps her hips to his, grinding her clit against the root of his cock to spark more pleasure in her as she writhes.

Rey. 

She moans gutturally, her fingers tightening in his hair. But she’s splintered on him, too helpless or too far gone to resist his ministrations as he cradles her close.

“See, Miss?” Ben spares a hand from her back to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. He draws more panting breaths from her as he bottoms out, nudging against her core and making her quake. “I can give you what you need.”

“What I need is  _ you _ .” Her lips tease the hollow of his jaw. “I need you to come inside me, Ben, I’m dying for you—”

He pumps into her faster, the fiery load aching for release. “You’re sure you want my spend?”

“Yes, love, please come for me, come in me, just come—”

“Not until you do,” he grits out.

“Harderharderharder—”

He ruts into her faster as her breaths sob together, until she’s wailing in ecstasy.

“ _ Ben _ ohBenohBen please god  _ fuck _ —”

He’s starting to recognize it now, the way her whole body tenses like a spring when she’s about to pop.

And this time he’s there with her as she convulses with rapture, grunting and thrusting deep, wrecking her precious cunt as he finds his release.

Rey screams with bliss as Ben’s seed floods her belly, until his spend trickles from her cock-stoppered pussy, until she begs him stop — until they lie tangled together, their interwoven breaths the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

Later generations would remember that as the night the New Republic fell, giving way to a brighter future.

Ben Solo would remember it as the first night he told his future wife that he loved her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this story!! Comments gratefully appreciated 🌸
> 
> Places you can find me lurking:  
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> \+ [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/ElegyGoldsmith)  
> \+ [my website](https://www.elegygoldsmith.com/)


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